Stuck/Abundance

Today's blog is a two-parter since so much happened!  Part One: STUCK

It rained most of the night and this morning HARD right before we left.  As we entered the vehicle, the rain pouring off the roof gave us a refreshing drenching.  As we bumped along the muddy, rutted roads it became evident that the large vehicle we took would not make it up the steep hills to the church.  We phoned the guest house and Claudy came and swapped us for a 4 WD.  We made it to the church but the rain kept all our students away...We were a bit discouraged but made the most of our time and learned how to make flower embellishments for  the knitted bags.  We decided to come back to the guest house for lunch...that's where the fun began.  Our vehicle had to move to the right for an oncoming vehicle and we became hopelessly stuck in the mud and almost up against a cement wall.  Immediately a large Haitian man with a booming voice took charge of the situation and pretty soon there was a battalion of men and one ripped elderly woman trying to push us out.  It soon became apparent that it wasn't going to budge so they pulled out the big guns.  We exited the vehicle and stood by with all of the village woman in watching the scenario unfold.  There was a strong potential that many things could go wrong including destruction of the vehicle or someone getting hurt.  We all started praying!  The first tow rope broke, then they brought out the chains-still no go.  Finally they decided to tow it in reverse and lo and behold, it got unstuck with very minimal vehicle damage!
Reflecting on how this same situation would have gone down in the US brought a few laughs.  If a team of men surrounded a group of white women, we would have immediately locked our doors and rolled up the windows...
How often in the US do we get "stuck"in our mud and refuse to acknowledge we need help, let alone ask for it?  How often do we immediately go to prayer for an answer?  How often do we let others in to help us if they even offer?  How often do we operate out of a fear-based mentality?

Part Two:  ABUNDANCE
Last night Denise Scott read from her Henry Nouwen devotional about having a mentality of abundance as God does vs. a mentality of scarcity.  How God lavishly blesses us above and beyond what we need.
So we returned to the church for our afternoon session with bated breath that people would show up now that the rain had stopped.  Pretty soon more and more of our ladies started showing up!  Some brought friends.  We ran out of our kits and then began giving away our personal supplies.  Our team mobilized in an amazing way and we started the newbies and progressed our advanced students.  We taught all of them to cut the shirts into yarn strips too.  More friends, including boys kept showing up and we soon had a rapt audience.  The girls began sharing their supplies and many instructed the others in what to do.  The one-day experts, suddenly became teachers!  It was organized chaos but all of us were loving every minute of it!  We developed more of a rapport and did a lot of laughing.
The message was Ephesians 2:10 about how we are God's handiwork with lots of knitting analogies.  They were attentive listeners and were enthusiastic about the day.
We left feeling very encouraged about how God worked it all out.  Maybe we don't have a big group of women entrepreneurs supporting themselves with their knitted wares but we have a whole mess of girls/young women who feel pretty special about something new that they learned and hopefully know how we are all connected in Christ and are infinitely more valuable to Him.
We can't wait to see what He has in store for us tomorrow!